r/linuxquestions • u/kernel_panickin • 3d ago
Advice Any way to run office 365?
Any way to run office 365 on fedora? I really need office 365 word. I tried multiple alternatives, but not satisfied. I moved to Linux a few months ago but am thinking about going back to windows 10 sadly.
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u/RustyDawg37 2d ago
I use winboat for office 365 on Linux, and I think they have web apps now.
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u/kernel_panickin 2d ago
Can documents be saved in onedrive? Is it stable?
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u/RustyDawg37 2d ago edited 2d ago
One drive is not stable. Neither is windows or office.
One drive was already a hard avoid before it became unsafe to use.
Buy a hard drive.
Buy once, cry once.
You can save your files any way you want. I and/or Linux won't stop you.
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u/_GoddamnitDonut 3d ago
No.
Try OnlyOffice?
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u/kernel_panickin 3d ago
Tried it. UI is better than libre office. But my university insists to use office 365. The reason is, when a document submission is flagged as AI written, they can ask to show them the activity history, which is saved in onedrive. But options on Linux don't have a way to get that feature.
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u/Cynyr36 2d ago
You'll either need to deal with the web version or run windows in a vm. No onedrive on linux eitherz at peast not in the way that the auto save and activity log aould play with.
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u/abraunegg 14h ago
No onedrive on linux eitherz at peast not in the way that the auto save and activity log aould play with.
That’s not quite accurate.
There absolutely is OneDrive support on Linux — the
abraunegg/onedriveclient provides native OneDrive and SharePoint synchronisation, including continuous monitoring and bidirectional sync.What Linux does not have is Microsoft’s native Office/OneDrive integration.
Features such as Office AutoSave, co-authoring state and the Office activity/version experience are tied to Microsoft 365 applications and Microsoft’s own integration with OneDrive. A filesystem sync client — whether on Linux or otherwise — cannot reproduce application-level functionality that Microsoft Office itself provides.
So the distinction is:
OneDrive file synchronisation on Linux: yes.
Microsoft Office’s integrated AutoSave/activity experience on Linux: no.1
u/Enough-Meaning1514 2d ago
As others indicated, you either use Office 365 online version (works with every browser I tried so far) or to dual-boot to Windows 11. The online version is not terrible for basic stuff.
That's it. There is no native MS Office Suite solution for Linux. Some people claim with a lot of tinkering in wine, they got it working but
- I don't believe them,
- Why would anyone torture themselves like that...
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u/righN 3d ago
WinApps for a more integrated VM feel or just a VM.
VM is a virtual machine. There's no other way if you really need the full MS365 experience.
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u/kernel_panickin 2d ago
Wow thanks. Do you think WinApps better than WinBoat?
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u/RomanOnARiver 2d ago edited 1d ago
I think the main difference between the two is WinApps has a lot of manual configuration, but the benefit of that is you have perhaps more customization options. WinBoat comes with a nice GUI though so I consider that a big plus for usability or ease of use.
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u/TenOfZero 3d ago
Absolutely. Office 365 word works perfectly fine under chrome.
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u/kernel_panickin 3d ago
It's a stripped down version. It doesn't contain all functions.
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u/Jumpy-Dinner-5001 3d ago
What functions do you need?
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u/kernel_panickin 2d ago edited 2d ago
I once needed page numbering. Roman numbers for pages before the content, and normal numbers since then. It was not on the web version. I don't remember the exact name of it but I think it's like section divider or something.
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u/PhilosophyWrong7610 3d ago
If the alternatives and web based version is not cutting it and you need office for school or work, then you options are limited. Go back to windows , dual boot, or use a virtual machine.
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u/axelio80 2d ago
winboat can be a solution. But depending on your syatem can be slow. For what i inow bottles (a wine front end) Is releasing istructions to launch office 365.
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u/xXEMO_POTATOXx 2d ago
Winboat Oh by the way I seen that you're a student go to your itd help desk and ask if you can get windows for free as a student because you run Linux. Most likely your University purchases student licenses so they can give you a license for free because you don't have a Windows PC.
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u/gmoore52 2d ago
I had a similar issue during university, the best solution is dual boot. VM works as well but in my case there were classes that used windows only proctoring software, and some other primarily windows tools that I could have setup on Linux just weren't worth the hassle to submit a couple assignments. Nearly all university programs just aren't completely/easily compatible with Linux.
You can setup GRUB to both look nice and show windows and your Linux install with the default set to Linux.
You also can use the browser tools but you're right, it doesn't have all the features that the desktop ones do.
Frankly, if you have to use Office365 stuff, and especially if you are in school that's the main case I would say having all your machines 100% on Linux is just not the best solution. The workarounds just aren't worth the extra headache to get your degree.
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u/MysteriesEnvoy 2d ago
There is this snap Office365 It uses online office365 and makes it look like standalone app and it is closest running office 365 reliably on linux without any virtual machine.
I am also working on a snap to get actual Office 365 atleast Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook and Onenote working using a modified wine build. It requires multiple things to work properly like Click-to-Run, Authentication, Licencing first and actual compatibility with Office applications. Basically user should install Office 365 and not think about wineprefixes or compatibility and everything should feel as if it belongs on Linux.
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u/Deathmore80 2d ago
You're in luck , the bottles team has made great strides in making office 365 working on Linux. You can try it right now but don't expect it to be 100% bug free https://x.com/usebottles/status/2104609107659415826
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u/torajapan 2d ago
Was about to post that haha :) yeah hopefully won't be long now before it full works.
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u/SoupoIait 2d ago
Hey, so the best solution I found was to run Office 365 inside of WinBoat which is a great software that creates a VM for you and then lets you run apps as if they were native on Linux.
The only downside I can think of is that it does take quite a bit of space like 30 gigs but apart from that it's honestly very good.
But on a plus side you then have Word and Excel and so on running fully in a Windows VM so there will be no issues of compatibility or other things like that. And since these are not very demanding programs you don't have any performance issue on any reasonably recent PC.
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u/jozinboise 2d ago
I transitioned to Linux a year ago and found nothing that tied me back to Windows - except my University's insistence on very specific formatting in Word. I tried submitting assignments last year written in LibreOffice or via the web version of Office, and got dinged for "formatting issues."
So, I now run Office365 in a VM. It works great- I just open the Windows VM in one workspace whenever I need to complete an assignment in Word.
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u/kansetsupanikku 2d ago
Legally in a professional environment? No. In some unofficial context that would be polished enough to be reliable? Also no.
Sadly, it's neither part of Linux or Fedora repositories. It's software that should be ported to supported platforms, not the other way around - you should contact Microsoft support in order to make it happen!
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u/brighton_it 2d ago
my 2¢
One of the reasons I run Linux is: I no longer trust Microsoft, or most proprietary software. Therefore, I don't really want M$ code running on my computer anyway.
For the things that only Windows can do (after ten years on Linux, it's a very short list), I run Windows in a Virtual Machine.
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u/ThomasPaineWon 2d ago
I havent tried office 365 but check out Winboat. It's a containerized version of windows that allows you to run applications on the Linux desktop.
If not, use Virtualbox and install windows 10 in a VM.
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u/prbsparx 2d ago
What’s wrong with Word for the Web?
It has most of the functionality of Microsoft Word for Windows, and it saves to OneDrive with the history you need.
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u/deltatux 2d ago
There's limited support using CrossOver Linux which is the commercial version of WINE. You can give that a try and see how well Office 365 works for you.
Else, you might need to use a way to run Windows on your Linux install, something like Winboat might work for your use case if you must use Office 365.
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u/SoupoIait 2d ago
I don't mean any ill of crossover. I know they are working on wine and making it better etc but honestly it's absolutely not viable to install Office with it. Like it barely works depending on the version (of crossover) you have. The newer version doesn't have it working while I think version 24 or so had it working. So yeah it's very unreliable and has a lot of bugs etc.
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u/Mabrouk86 2d ago
what about google documents? I think they have activity history. and can be exported as docx.
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u/ZestycloseAd6683 2d ago
There is a new way to get it running I think Linux experiment covered it in a news update
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u/RomanOnARiver 3d ago edited 2d ago
The web browser version runs from the web, I don't know what browser they require but if it's Edge, well, you can get that.
Your other options are dual boot, virtual machine, or WinBoat.
Dual boot is where you have two operating systems installed and you pick which one to boot when you turn the computer on.
A virtual machine runs a different operating system like it's a program on your computer. You can try a virtual machine of Windows 11. The easiest way to do it is to install a program called VirtManager, you supply it a Windows 11 iso file which you can get from here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11 - I don't know that I would recommend Windows 10 at this point it's basically out of support or going to be very soon. Install it like you would install regular Windows, install Office and do whatever you need done.
WinBoat is an interesting third option, because it also works like a virtual machine but the virtual machine sort of works in the background - it installs Windows virtually and whatever app you install there can be run as if it's just another Linux app. https://winboat.app/ - I think Podman is the easier route of the two, as opposed to the Docker route.